Homily – Fr. Michael Casagram 3/12/23 – Whoever Drinks the Water I Shall Give Will Never Thirst

Homily – Fr. Michael Casagram 3/12/23 – Whoever Drinks the Water I Shall Give Will Never Thirst

+WHOEVER DRINKS THE WATER I SHALL GIVE WILL NEVER THIRST      12 March 2023

What is this water that Jesus gives, so that once we have drunk of it we will never thirst again? It is not the water of his own Spirit, a sharing in his own divine life? The rock that Moses struck in the desert is a symbol of Christ from whose side flowed the living water of God’s Spirit. Each and all of us have been made in the image and likeness of God, and are destined to reflect God’s own divine life. We do this as often as our lives surrender to the presence and life of the Holy Spirit at work in us. We received the Holy Spirit at the moment of our baptism but the Holy Spirit becomes active only when we are open to the movement of this grace given us. Christ comes near to us in our daily activity just as he met the Samaritan woman at the well, if only we are ready to hear his voice and respond with our lives.

We just heard how the disciples of Jesus are taken aback, amazed the gospel tells us “that he was talking with a woman.” I cannot help wondering why they were so amazed! Isn’t this a lot more about them than about Jesus. What was going on in their hearts, seeing Jesus talking with this woman? Is this because she was a Samaritan or because she was a woman? Jesus is wonderfully free interiorly whereas his disciples are not with his speaking to her. One wonders if the need in so many cultures today to subordinate women is not the projection by men of their own inordinate desire for them. This is very revealing about what goes on in our human hearts and what it means to be truly free and chase so as to worship God in Spirit and truth.

The disciples then urged Jesus “Rabbi, eat,” for they had brought some food from the city they had gone to. Jesus tells them: “I have food to eat of which you do not know…my food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work.” Jesus is nourished by doing the will of his Father. During this Lenten season we too are invited to share in the nourishment that Jesus enjoyed by seeking to be more attentive to God’s will in our own lives. The whole purpose of our prayer and fasting  is to make us more attentive, more sensitive to God’s will. We are to open our minds and hearts to whatever God may be asking of each of us not only here at this Sunday Eucharist but all through the week.

To open ourselves ever more to doing God’s will is to experience with St Paul how “the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” As we allow this living water to flow in our veins we are freed of our deepest thirst. To experience this, empowers us to worship God all day long, to worship God wherever we may be in Spirit and truth. The Eucharist we celebrate at this altar strengthens God’s own life within us.  Amen

(xodus 17:3-7; Romans 5:1-2,5-8; John 4:5-42)